Cultural Appropriation Thread Of Doom

Shweta · Feb 26, 2009

Split off from the magical realism thread

Kitty Pryde said:
I can see where the magical realism writers of S. America have that aspect of nonchalant acceptance of the supernatural, but isn't there something more to it? Like when I have read that stuff, I had a sense of it being dreamlike and almost following dream logic in some parts. Some of the later bits of that essay made sense to me, where he said that magical realism included non-linear time, non-causality, and writing 'the ordinary as miraculous and the miraculous as ordinary'.

...Maybe it's saying that this sort of thing (dream logic, non-causality) is taken for granted, rather than just the existence of supernatural elements?

I tend to think of magical realism as being "Night brain" storytelling in a superficially "Day brain" world. Plus, you know,its original cultural context. I wonder if we can even think about the modern instantiation, taken out of its cultural context, and its effects on modern fantasy, without raising the cultural appropriation issue? Which perhaps everyone in this mix'nmatch group should at least be aware is an issue...

Kitty Pryde · Feb 27, 2009

Shweta said:
...Maybe it's saying that this sort of thing (dream logic, non-causality) is taken for granted, rather than just the existence of supernatural elements?

I tend to think of magical realism as being "Night brain" storytelling in a superficially "Day brain" world. Plus, you know,its original cultural context. I wonder if we can even think about the modern instantiation, taken out of its cultural context, and its effects on modern fantasy, without raising the cultural appropriation issue? Which perhaps everyone in this mix'nmatch group should at least be aware is an issue...

I love the term 'night brain' and I shall think mightily upon it. That's a helpful way of considering magical realism. And, AH! I love the ABW! And yeah, I think a thread on cultural appropriation would be awesome in this forum, as it applies to the roots of magical realism. And maybe also the same thread or a different one about how being the minority/The Other relates to Interstitial as a genre, would be awesomesauce and make us all smarter.

Sharon Mock said:
This is why I really like Rogers' claim that magical realism isn't speculative. (And why "normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans and society" gets up my nose a bit.) I think it puts a finger on a fundamental difference between genre spec fic and... well... the slipperier stuff.

Jim Butcher is speculative: what if magic were a real part of modern life? So is most other urban fantasy. And I finally know why War for the Oaks isn't magical realism (what if Faerie came to Minneapolis?).

I tend to think of it in terms of making metaphors concrete, and having the world obey that narrative logic that is so often lacking in everyday life. But I might well be completely missing the boat on that one.

OK, so I've been thinking on the idea that magical realism isn't speculative. But what about 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' by Marquez? Can't that be described as, 'What if some people found a sad old downtrodden angel in their tiny fishing village?' or alternatively 'What if angels were real and fell out of the sky?' So what makes it not speculative/fantasy?

I'm not trying to be contrary, really. I just have a logical-must-categorize-all-things brain, and the idea of this is rattling the bars of the cage a little bit. This topic may be immune to logic? I'm sort of thinking it's feelings that make something MR, rather than concrete content. <shakes fist angrily at feelings>

PS Some awesome links about MR here.

Williebee · Mar 2, 2009

Gee thanks, Shweta, for sucking up most of the last several hours, and probably more tomorrow, with the link to the ABW discussion.

So much of that comment thread is focusing on "cultural appropriation" as though the use of cultures other than our own in our work could only be done as a negative. Where's the "fair use doctrine" of all this?

Hmm, methinks we do need this in a thread of its own.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

Williebee said:
So much of that comment thread is focusing on "cultural appropriation" as though the use of cultures other than our own in our work could only be done as a negative. Where's the "fair use doctrine" of all this?

Well, that's because that's what the thread is about.

I really like the plagiarism vs citation & fair use analogy -- if you change things majorly, acknowledge sources, or both, it's probably good. But there is also the issue of being respectful (and thus listening/engaging when people say "I don't think your use of X was okay") and not stabbing people in extant festering wounds (and the related question about using any screwed-over group's mythology in horror writing).

It's not an easy issue. It's far easier to ignore minority voices and do whateverthehell one wants.
But then it's always easier to be a jerk. The trouble is in finding out how not to be in murky situations

And where the line is between asserting self/creativity and stepping on other people.

Cranky · Mar 2, 2009

Williebee said:
Gee thanks, Shweta, for sucking up most of the last several hours, and probably more tomorrow, with the link to the ABW discussion.

So much of that comment thread is focusing on "cultural appropriation" as though the use of cultures other than our own in our work could only be done as a negative. Where's the "fair use doctrine" of all this?

Hmm, methinks we do need this in a thread of its own.

I'd like to see that kind of thread, too, because I never thought of that as a negative unless it were trading on stereotypes in some way, especially a negative one.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

Cranky said:
I'd like to see that kind of thread, too, because I never thought of that as a negative unless it were trading on stereotypes in some way, especially a negative one.

There's stereotyping, but there's also tokenizing and its classic subtype, "Wise Simple Magical Native Who Dies For Anglo Hero". And thething where every member of a minority in a novel Speaks For That Minority and says the same thing...

There are also culture-specific sore spots. Yes, it's work to find out what they are, but it's also work to live with them, and that affects people and thus characters. So it's just a part of research and verisimilitude to figure 'em out.

On the other hand there's also using white-out -- writing a real-world setting and just not putting in the actual racial mix that setting has. Or writing a fantasy setting in order "not to deal with race". To readers who have to deal with race evry day of our lives, this doesn't appeal.

I don't think there's an easy way out, any more than there's an easy way out to any other aspect of writing

ETA: Not that I think anyone is saying there is! Just that I'm warning against despairing because here's a new Hard Thing. Sure, here's a new Hard Thing, but so is every other aspect of writing when we first come across it

Cranky · Mar 2, 2009

Oh heck no -- not easy. I guess I was just misunderstanding the meaning there. *read links, Cranky!*

I like borrowing from other cultures (American culture, which definitely has it's pluses, is too "mundane" in some ways to really inspire me), but I certainly wouldn't want to cause offense. Yowza!

Phoebe H · Mar 2, 2009

Shweta said:
On the other hand there's also using white-out -- writing a real-world setting and just not putting in the actual racial mix that setting has. Or writing a fantasy setting in order "not to deal with race". To readers who have to deal with race evry day of our lives, this doesn't appeal.

What I tend to do is use a fantasy setting so that I can deal with race without dealing with actual existing races. The theory being that it can be easier to communicate about real issues if you can eliminate the triggers that will cause the reader to have automatic emotional reactions that keep them from actually reading what you are saying.

Which is very easy to do poorly and didactically, and very difficult to do realistically and well. Still, I try.

(Although lately, most of my stuff is actually dealing with gender without dealing with Gender, which is a completely *different* set of challenges. Because I'd hate to make it too easy on myself.)

sunandshadow · Mar 2, 2009

I think of dream logic as a key principle of surrealism also.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

sunandshadow said:
I think of dream logic as a key principle of surrealism also.

Did you mean this to go in the magical realism thread?

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

Phoebe H said:
What I tend to do is use a fantasy setting so that I can deal with race without dealing with actual existing races.

Me too, in some ways. Where that can get tricky is if those races start reading as allegories of real races, especially if an author's unquestioned prejudices (and we all have prejudices! We're human!) seep in. MadeUpFantasyRaces can be racist too; I mean, look at the "alien races" in Star Wars I.

sunandshadow · Mar 2, 2009

Shweta said:
Did you mean this to go in the magical realism thread?

Oh, I hadn't read the magical realism thread, I was just responding to the first post here. But to make it more on topic: I believe it is impossible for 'dream logic' to be culturally appropriated because it is a universal human mental state, although some cultures embrace it more and others suppress it more. Specifically western culture seems to assign dream logic a value of 'otherness', whether in terms of the mysteriousness of foreign cultures or the alienness of the subconscious and inner primitive man.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

sunandshadow said:
Oh, I hadn't read the magical realism thread, I was just responding to the first post here. But to make it more on topic: I believe it is impossible for 'dream logic' to be culturally appropriated because it is a universal human mental state, although some cultures embrace it more and others suppress it more.

I'd agree. But a literary movement that grew up with a strong cultural/sociological context and happened to make use of dream logic? That can, and maybe has been, appropriated. If those of us outside that context now use the feel because we like the feel, does that defeat the initial purpose? Is that like Madonna wearing a bindi*?

Which is not to say we should all avoid magical realism

Just... something to think about.

* Not that I ever objected to that, personally. The bindi is so just a decorative thing to most Hindus at this point too.

Cranky · Mar 2, 2009

Shweta said:
I'd agree. But a literary movement that grew up with a strong cultural/sociological context and happened to make use of dream logic? That can, and maybe has been, appropriated. If those of us outside that context now use the feel because we like the feel, does that defeat the initial purpose? Is that like Madonna wearing a bindi*?

Which is not to say we should all avoid magical realism Just... something to think about.

* Not that I ever objected to that, personally. The bindi is so just a decorative thing to most Hindus at this point too.

I don't think it's ridiculous in a Madonna wearing a bindi sort of way. I also hesitate at thinking of it as inappropriate to make use of dream logic. As was pointed out, we all dream, no matter where we're from, so how can we disappropriate (heh) something that is sort of integral to being human? It may be (or has been in the past) most strongly associated with Southern American writers, but does that mean it should be off limits to, say American or French or African writers? I don't think so, not at all.

Then again, maybe that's just a selfish impulse on my part, since I really enjoy the whole idea of using dream logic. It's very compelling. I just don't think it's the province of one single culture, so to speak.

Sigh.

Hope I haven't put my foot in it here.

MacAllister · Mar 2, 2009

Cranky said:
I don't think it's ridiculous in a Madonna wearing a bindi sort of way. I also hesitate at thinking of it as inappropriate to make use of dream logic. As was pointed out, we all dream, no matter where we're from, so how can we disappropriate (heh) something that is sort of integral to being human? It may be (or has been in the past) most strongly associated with Southern American writers, but does that mean it should be off limits to, say American or French or African writers? I don't think so, not at all.

Then again, maybe that's just a selfish impulse on my part, since I really enjoy the whole idea of using dream logic. It's very compelling. I just don't think it's the province of one single culture, so to speak.

Sigh.

Hope I haven't put my foot in it here.

Naw. You've not put your foot in it. Especially when there's a very, very strong argument to be made for dream-logic in literary text as belonging to several cultures -- Chinese and Aboriginal, frex -- regardless of the genre tag "magical realism" primarily being applied to Latin American works in recent years. I'm not buying that ANY of them culturally appropriated it. That just wouldn't hold up to the light of factual examination.

But we should also probably make a note that magical realism as a literary term means something rather different than the way we're using it, here -- because the way we're using it here is still sort of slippery, as far as I can tell.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

Cranky said:
I don't think it's ridiculous in a Madonna wearing a bindi sort of way.

Well, no, I was pulling in a ridiculous analogy, I admit.

I also hesitate at thinking of it as inappropriate to make use of dream logic. As was pointed out, we all dream, no matter where we're from, so how can we disappropriate (heh) something that is sort of integral to being human?

Yeah, and I think we're all entirely in agreement on that.
My next question would be: Is it appropriate to call what non-South-American writers do "magical realism"? I think it's sort of silly at this point not to, but it makes me a little bit uncomfortable anyway.

And then: would it be appropriate to snag everything the original magicalrealists did and take it out of its original context, and package that as Authentic Magical Realism? Since there's more to MR than dream logic, at least there's more to the initial movement. And there, I'd start to get really uncomfortable; that'd start seeming really disrespectful to me.

And then: Do I even get to have an opinion, with no connection to the original culture/movement? I mean, sure, everyone has opinions, but what makes mine worth blathering on about?

It's all a graded scale, I think.

MacAllister · Mar 2, 2009

Shweta said:
And then: Do I even get to have an opinion, with no connection to the original culture/movement? I mean, sure, everyone has opinions, but what makes mine worth blathering on about?

It's all a graded scale, I think.

See, there's the rub.

If you don't get to have an opinion -- or at least don't get to express your opinion, because you're not one; if I don't get to have an opinion because I'm not one either; then...well...why on earth bother to read and think about books you don't get to talk about or have an opinion about or allow to shape your own attempts to make art?

We can tie ourselves up in knots, but in the end, this kind of logic leads to a place where everyone creates art in their own little bubble and it can't be interactive at all, because "you don't get to talk about what I'm doing, goddamn it."

As a reader, and as a writer both? That's silly.

No. It's beyond silly. It's profoundly ridiculous, and reduces art to little more than public-performance masturbation.

For the record, as a lit-crit geek, here's a definition -- because if we're going to talk about Magical Realism, my head will explode if none of us are actually talking about the same thing--and unless we're actually going to talk about "Magical Realism" then can we please, please, PLEASE stop calling what we're talking about by that appellation?

"magic realism" The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC - Los Angeles. 3 March 2009

Most people won't be able to use the URL; it's subscription based.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE EXAMPLES GIVEN. Those example texts say more than I ever could about the actual nature of Magical Realism -- of which, YES, South American writers have been an important contingent. But they're hardly the only writers to do it, NOR were they the first writers to do it.

magic realism (magical realism) A kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the ‘reliable’ tone of objective realistic report. The term was once applied to a trend in German fiction of the early 1950s, but is now associated chiefly with certain leading novelists of Central and South America, notably Miguel Ángel Asturias , Alejo Carpentier , and Gabriel García Márquez . The latter's Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967 ) is often cited as a leading example, celebrated for the moment at which one character unexpectedly ascends to heaven while hanging her washing on a line. The term has also been extended to works from very different cultures, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable , folktale and myth while retaining a strong contemporary social relevance. Thus Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1959 ), Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ( 1979 ), and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children ( 1981 ) have been described as magic realist novels along with Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus ( 1984 ) and Rushdie's The Satanic Verses ( 1988 ). The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagoric political realities of the 20th century. See also fabulation . For a fuller account, consult Maggie Ann Bowers , Magic(al) Realism ( 2004 ).

Cranky · Mar 2, 2009

MacAllister said:
Naw. You've not put your foot in it. Especially when there's a very, very strong argument to be made for dream-logic in literary text as belonging to several cultures -- Chinese and Aboriginal, frex -- regardless of the genre tag "magical realism" primarily being applied to Latin American works in recent years. I'm not buying that ANY of them culturally appropriated it. That just wouldn't hold up to the light of factual examination.

But we should also probably make a note that magical realism as a literary term means something rather different than the way we're using it, here -- because the way we're using it here is still sort of slippery, as far as I can tell.

Glad I didn't put my foot in it.

I do have a question though -- I am wondering what the literary term really means, if we're using it in a "slippery" way here. I've seen some consensus on the generalities, but when you try to really pin it down, it gets a little greasy.

Isn't that partly a reflection of the movement/genre itself? Or am I missing the point? Seriously...I'm still learning here. ETA: Just saw your new post. Off to read it...

Shweta said:
Well, no, I was pulling in a ridiculous analogy, I admit.

Yeah, and I think we're all entirely in agreement on that.
My next question would be: Is it appropriate to call what non-South-American writers do "magical realism"? I think it's sort of silly at this point not to, but it makes me a little bit uncomfortable anyway.

And then: would it be appropriate to snag everything the original magicalrealists did and take it out of its original context, and package that as Authentic Magical Realism? Since there's more to MR than dream logic, at least there's more to the initial movement. And there, I'd start to get really uncomfortable; that'd start seeming really disrespectful to me.

And then: Do I even get to have an opinion, with no connection to the original culture/movement? I mean, sure, everyone has opinions, but what makes mine worth blathering on about?

It's all a graded scale, I think.

I can see it being a problem to repackage it as "authentic" in the way you're saying it here, but again, that goes back to my point about it being a really "human" sort of thing. Just because it began somewhere regionally (at least in terms of getting an official label or seminal work or author), doesn't mean it belongs only to the originating culture (so to speak).

And yeah, I'd agree that there's more to it than dream logic, though we've sort of glommed onto that aspect of it, for now.

And blather away, I say! I am appallingly ignorant on this subject, and I'm still yammering.

Don't think that's a ringing endorsement, though. :roll:

MacAllister · Mar 2, 2009

I just posted a pretty standard definitely, Cranky - but one more time for emphasis:

"magic realism" The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC - Los Angeles. 3 March 2009

Most people won't be able to use the URL; it's subscription based.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE EXAMPLES GIVEN. Those example texts say more than I ever could about the actual nature of Magical Realism -- of which, YES, South American writers have been an important contingent. But they're hardly the only writers to do it, NOR were they the first writers to do it.

magic realism (magical realism) A kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the ‘reliable’ tone of objective realistic report. The term was once applied to a trend in German fiction of the early 1950s, but is now associated chiefly with certain leading novelists of Central and South America, notably Miguel Ángel Asturias , Alejo Carpentier , and Gabriel García Márquez . The latter's Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967 ) is often cited as a leading example, celebrated for the moment at which one character unexpectedly ascends to heaven while hanging her washing on a line. The term has also been extended to works from very different cultures, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable , folktale and myth while retaining a strong contemporary social relevance. Thus Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1959 ), Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ( 1979 ), and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children ( 1981 ) have been described as magic realist novels along with Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus ( 1984 ) and Rushdie's The Satanic Verses ( 1988 ). The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagoric political realities of the 20th century. See also fabulation . For a fuller account, consult Maggie Ann Bowers , Magic(al) Realism ( 2004 ).

Bluntly, part of what the conversation about Magical Realism seems to be missing is an understanding of how very political the literary tradition tends to be.

Cranky · Mar 2, 2009

"The term has also been extended to works from very different cultures, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable , folktale and myth while retaining a strong contemporary social relevance."

See, yes! This is what I was thinking of, what draws me in. I love this, it's what I'd really like to do (add in the dream logic parts, and it gets REALLY fun), only borrowing other cultures' fables, folktales, and myths as a basis, because they're more interesting to me than some of my own.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

MacAllister said:
We can tie ourselves up in knots, but in the end, this kind of logic leads to a place where everyone creates art in their own little bubble and it can't be interactive at all, because "you don't get to talk about what I'm doing, goddamn it."

Obviously I don't actually go there, because here I am blathering.
But I do think the question is worth asking, especially when a whole group o' people without the cultural heritage are talking about [typeof writing X]. I can't help hearing the absence of the other voices, the ones who might have a more personal connectin to it than I do.

In the end I think everyone gets to blather, but not everyone does, so I do get concerned about somehow talking over other people.

I don't think having that concern in mind leads to own-little-bubbles. I think not having it in mind is more likely to.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

Also

*ahem*
This thread started out as a spinoff of the magical realism thread, which I have now pointed back to in post1 as I damnwell knew I should have right from the start but forgot but maybe we should go back to the magical realism thread to discuss that?

MacAllister · Mar 2, 2009

I think being concerned about being respectful of other cultures/traditions/etc is the responsibility of any sane and caring human being -- absolutely.

And I didn't mean to sound quite so vehement.

I honestly and passionately believe, though, that the great black hole that turns most of us into mediocre writers or artists tends almost without exception to be fear: Fear of pissing someone off, being misunderstood, not being nice enough or respectful enough or whatever, enough -- and unless we're willing to risk taking gasping and wild chances and falling flat on our faces, we're dooming ourselves to never, ever do anything very interesting.

ETA: and I'll go and post the definition there, too, certainly.

Shweta · Mar 2, 2009

MacAllister said:
I honestly and passionately believe, though, that the great black hole that turns most of us into mediocre writers or artists tends almost without exception to be fear: Fear of pissing someone off, being misunderstood, not being nice enough or respectful enough or whatever, enough -- and unless we're willing to risk taking gasping and wild chances and falling flat on our faces, we're dooming ourselves to never, ever do anything very interesting.

Agreed.
But I think we become better writers when we push aside the fear of pissing off power, not the fear of pissing off people who are already screwed over, lack of said fear being exactly what causes the mess in the first place (on many different axes all at once, as we've seen so clearly in the past).

I do think we can have concern, and botheration, and even worry, without going mediocre, so long as the response is to poke at and learn about the bothersome things instead of avoid 'em. And that's true about respecting other cultures, but it's equally true aboout writing complex characters and making difficult plot decisions

MacAllister · Mar 2, 2009

Shweta said:
I do think we can have concern, and botheration, and even worry, without going mediocre, so long as the response is to poke at and learn about the bothersome things instead of avoid 'em. And that's true about respecting other cultures, but it's equally true aboout writing complex characters and making difficult plot decisions

We're definitely agreed about that.

My point would be, honestly, that if you're worried about pissing someone off, then almost by definition they have at least some power -- even if only power that you personally are recognizing -- otherwise it would never occur to you to wonder or care what that person, group, etc thought about what you were doing.

Cultural Appropriation Thread Of Doom

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